first lady, michelle obama takes center stage with the prime time speech expected to focus on the personal side of president obama, but likely will be an economic message as well. the president has been focusoth middle class in recent campaign appearances looking forward to the convention speech on thursday night, and stay focused. >> the former chairman of the white house council of economic advisers joins us from the convention. austan welcome back to nbr. are americans better off now than four years ago? now do you answer that? >> on average yes. >> in 200 noox*ib, it was january but one of the first economic months in this country. we lost 800,000 jobs, and the stock market collapsed a net worth of something like 40%. so i think we're a long, long way that from, and anybody who thinks that they would like to trade places with last month versus january, 2009, but likely asleep then. >> we asked are they as good today as they thought they would be four years ago'd: perhaps there's a more difficult question for the administration, isn't it? >> if you're asking, is this perfection? no. we